No one likes to hear what they’re doing is wrong, especially when it comes to their own business. However, pinpointing what you’re doing wrong and learning how to fix it can really help you bring more success to your company. One of the places companies tend to go wrong without noticing is in content development.
No one likes to hear what they’re doing is wrong, especially when it comes to their own business. However, pinpointing what you’re doing wrong and learning how to fix it can really help you bring more success to your company. One of the places companies tend to go wrong without noticing is in content development.
The landscape for content in B2B is growing, just as it is in nearly every industry. The good part about content is also the bad part. We have so much to choose from, but we also have so much bad content littered throughout the options we have to consume.
So how do you make sure your business’ content is on the good side of the coin? For this post we are highlighting two signs of content gone wrong and solutions to fixing them.
Sign 1: You’re always producing the same kind of B2B content, with the same low results
This might be one of the most common problems when it comes to developing B2B content. A lot of it is getting produced, but it’s all the same and you’re seeing very little engagement or marketing ROI. As Albert Einstein said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
If you’ve found a sweet spot reaching and engaging your audience with the same stuff, that’s excellent. Keep developing the same thing and look for ways to improve upon it. However, for many, this isn’t the case. Engagement is low, the posts, tweets and updates are the same, and not much is changing. A lot of effort is being put into delivering a large amount of content, but nothing is happening in return.
The Solution: Take a good look at what works and what doesn’t, then do something about it.
Going back to look at your content and analyzing what’s working and what’s not is a simple task that many businesses fail to do. When you make this a routine part of your marketing strategy and you adjust accordingly, you put yourself ahead of a bulk of B2B competitors.
For content, this task is invaluable. If you see that a particular topic or format of content is causing more engagement for your company than others, you should push towards that format or expand on that topic. For example, if your product video excelled in engagement while your simple status updates are flailing, push more towards video content.
Sign 2: You don’t really know why you’re creating B2B content and whether it’s useful.
One of the biggest reasons B2B businesses have trouble with social media and other content platforms is because they can’t really pinpoint why they’re releasing what they are releasing. With so much content out there, what you’re putting out must have a purpose and be useful to be effective.
In movies, sports, television and art, audiences tend to flock to good performances, superior athleticism, great scripts and beautiful renditions. The same can be said for online and offline content. People have taste when it comes to your industry, and they want content that is relevant, high quality and useful.
The Solution: Utilize your resources the best you can to find important factors, and then develop content based off them.
Don’t just produce content because you can. Your content should always add value to your audience. The feeling of not having enough to work with is common. We’ve all been there, we feel helpless in finding more valuable information when it comes to projects we’re working on, but nine times out of 10, we just haven’t exhausted the right routes. The same can be said for finding which types of content to develop.
There are a variety of resources to help you generate effective content that you may just be unaware of. For example, one of the simplest ways to get new ideas for social media is to poll your sales staff on the different pain points of customers.
This doesn’t just mean getting the basics; it means working with them to really find out what your customers are most interested in and what drives them to convert. Who knows what drives your consumers to purchase more than the sales team? Chances are there are many things that drive them, and your content is the perfect way to address those factors.
Online, the resources are almost endless. Doing things like keyword research can allow you to analyze words and phrases within your industry and whether those topics are popular or not. So how do you turn this into good content? Simple; look at the popular keywords and phrases, pull which ones are topics your company can speak on as experts in the industry and relate to your products, then make those the focus for content. Chances are the engagement and reception of popular topics online will translate as successful content topics for your company as well.
There are many more signs that your content could be improved, but note these two and make the effort to turn them around. Taking these in stride and making the necessary changes can have major reverberations on your business’ customer engagement and conversions. Keep visiting our blog and stay tuned for more content marketing tips and best practices.
